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Design changes to Scarborough subway come with unknown costs

What those changes will mean for the total cost to build the project, the TTC isn’t saying. They include building a public plaza that was not previously part of the estimated $3.35 billion to build the six-kilometre, one-stop extension of the Bloor-Danforth line.

The one-stop Scarborough extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway line is currently estimated to cost $3.35 billion. (Tijana Martin / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO)

A report to the board, which meets next week, asks to increase the upset limit — the maximum amount that is authorized to be spent — on a contract with AECOM, which is working on station design, by $26 million. The contract is specifically for the Scarborough Centre Station, which will be the terminal station on the one-stop extension.

At the same time as the contract limit increase, the TTC is requesting the contract limit for a separate contract with AECOM for a Sheppard East station, which is now no longer part of the plan, be reduced by the equivalent $26 million.

Council has previously voted to move forward with planning the subway extension to replace the aging Scarborough RT. The project was reduced from a three-stop version, approved under former mayor Rob Ford’s administration, in 2016. The current cost estimate, provided in 2017, was based on very little design work.

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There is a total project budget for new transit in Scarborough of $3.56 billion. That includes funding from all three levels of government, including $910 million from the city which is being raised by taxing all Toronto homeowners for at least the next 30 years.

The report says staff are looking to reconfigure the bus terminal, which will be in the area of McCowan and Triton Rds. near the Scarborough Town Centre. The changes involve “widening and lowering” Triton Rd. and the “raising and reconfiguration of Borough Dr. into a bridge structure” that will be connected to the station. There are now also plans to build a public plaza which “requires structural changes to support it, as well as mechanical ventilation.”

TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said there was “always a requirement to raise Borough (Dr.) and build a bridge to allow double decker buses into the Triton Bus Terminal.” But it’s unclear what effect the changes will have on overall costs. A bridge was not discussed in the report to council in 2017. The plaza was not part of the previously-reported design.

Green said despite the overall design already reaching 10 per cent, there was “no estimate” produced at that stage. One won’t be available, he said, until staff report in the new term of council in early 2019. At that point, council will have to vote on whether to go ahead with construction.

“Far from being shovel-ready, city staff are still struggling at the drawing board because they were told to fit a square peg into a round hole,” said Councillor Josh Matlow, who has long supported building the originally-planned and funded light-rail line to replace the SRT.

“The switch from an LRT network for Scarborough to a one-stop subway has significantly delayed the delivery of rapid transit, leaving residents on the bus and with longer commutes. That’s shameful.”

It’s unclear why the TTC still has an open contract for the Sheppard East station when it hasn’t been part of the plan since the beginning of 2016. Green said no work is underway on that contract.

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Sweeping to power earlier this month with a new provincial PC government, Premier Doug Ford has vowed to return to the three-stop subway plan, though he provided no details of how he would pay for it.

The three-stop plan was last estimated at $4.6 billion, leaving the current budget more than $1 billion short.

“If direction comes to change to a three-stop subway we will need to review the design, cost and schedule impacts,” Green said.

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